Police thwart MDC event scheduled for tomorrow

by Luke Tamborinyoka

14 Jan 2020 at 16:01hrs | Views

The police have today proscribed Agenda 2020, a key event for the party that was scheduled for tomorrow in Mbare, Harare, citing flimsy excuses that the event cannot proceed because the police are busy with the schools that are opening this week, as if the police have anything to do with opening of schools.

Tomorrow's event was scheduled to be addressed by the party leadership.

We are noting a disturbing trend where the police are routinely proscribing MDC events and treating the party as a banned organization in the country.

Starting with our scheduled peaceful and constitutional public protests in the various cities that were brutally quelled by the police in August last year, as well as President Nelson Chamisa's Hope of the Nation Address that was violently proscribed on 20 November 2019, we have noted a very disturbing trend where the police are banning legitimate and constitutional activities by the party.

In each of these instances, we had complied with the law and given the police due notification but we continue to be treated like a banned or a terrorist organization when we are a legitimate political party that is in Parliament and that controls 28 out of 32 urban local authorities.

The police have periodically abused our compliance with the law and as a party, we are reviewing whether under the current circumstances, we should continue to co-operate with unjust laws and unjust requirements.

We have had enough.

The MDC national leadership has met today and as a mark of responsible leadership has said no to confrontation and is having to stop the people who were ready to attend the event in Mbare tomorrow.

For fear of their lives against this brutal dictatorship, and given what this regime has done before, we have decided to postpone the Agenda 2020 event to next week on Tuesday at a venue to be announced. But this does not mean that we are complying with dictatorship. We have given the regime due notice of all our constitutional activities and they have denied us the chance to exercise our democratic rights.

. This is a peaceful event, a mammoth event on this year's national calendar to that is set to be attended by ordinary people as well as diplomats in which the party will lay to the people its agenda for the year, including its programme of action as well as the party's programme of activities for the year.

We have postponed the event because the regime was budgeting for a clash, for blood and for violence and as a party we will not sacrifice the lives of innocent Zimbabweans.

I reiterate that we are reviewing the position of whether we should continue to comply and co-operate with unjust laws and unjust requirements that are inimical to democracy.

We have postponed our event because we do not want any sideshow. We want to give Zimbabweans a chance to hear the party's calendar of critical path targets for the year that will address the key challenges affecting the ordinary people as well as the party's plan to rescue the nation out of the current morass.